Bid to fix Dreamliner glitches

New Delhi, March 2 (PTI): Aircraft manufacturer Boeing is likely to submit a time-bound action plan to fix the perennial technical problems being faced by the Dreamliners in Air India’s fleet to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) next week.

The US plane manufacturer will submit the plan after being hauled up by the DGCA two days ago over the continued engineering snags faced by the Boeing 787 Dreamliners, official sources said today.

Air India so far has 12 Dreamliners in its fleet out of the 27 it has ordered.

The sources said a team of Boeing officials had been categorically told that the DGCA would be forced to take any action in the interest of flight safety if these issues were not resolved satisfactorily in a time-bound manner.

In a clear warning to the producers of the Dreamliners, DGCA chief Prabhat Kumar is understood to have reminded the American company that the Indian regulator had once grounded the entire new A-320 fleet of the erstwhile Indian Airlines in early 1990s over safety concerns.

Since its induction two years ago till last month, Air India’s Dreamliners have experienced 44 major engineering snags. Parliament was also informed few weeks ago that a total of 136 “minor” technical problems had occurred in the fleet since its delivery began in September 2012.

The faults included nine equipment failures, seven flight control issues, six landing gear trouble, four navigational aid problems and three windshield cracks.